Morehouse police chief charged with assault

Morehouse College’s chief of police, Vernon Worthy, has been charged with aggravated assault, false imprisonment and pointing a gun at someone after a hunting confrontation in Middle Georgia

Worthy, who is the chief of campus safety at Morehouse, posted bond Monday and was ordered by Chief Magistrate Judge William Thomas of Lamar County to stay away from the Barnesville man he confronted on Nov. 11.

Nathaniel Rooks, 26, claims Worthy pulled a gun on him during a hunting excursion in Barnesville.

“He was actually trespassing, and he thought I was trespassing, and he pulled a gun on me and made me drop my gun and get on the ground” and then called police, Rooks told the AJC.

“He’s dangerous, and what he did was completely out of line, and he needs to be punished for it,” he said.

Worthy, reached at home Monday, said, “I got no comment.”

Morehouse College issued the following statement: “Chief Vernon Worthy is a long-standing and loyal employee of Morehouse College. The incident that occurred in Lamar County happened on his personal time and outside the scope of his employment,” said Toni O’Neal Mosley, director of public relations.

Worthy’s attorney, Lynn Whatley, says he will “vigorously defend any allegations of criminal conduct,” calling the case a “civil dispute” involving a “misunderstanding about some wild land.”

“The boundary lines weren’t properly demarcated, so he detained the guy who he believed was trying to be a poacher,” he said. Rooks “was never hurt or abused in any fashion. He just was detained until they brought the sheriff and the game warden there to hear the differences of opinion” about “who had the proper authority to be on that particular portion of the land.”

Rooks testified that Worthy pulled a pistol on him and ordered him to lie face down on the ground, according to barnesville.com. “He told me “I will blow your [expletive deleted] brains out if you try anything,” Rooks said of Worthy.

Whatley said, the allegations against Worthy are “not legitimate criminal charges and therefore should not affect his career,” he said. “Worthy has been an outstanding law enforcement officer” over the course of 42 years, he said. “This incident is just a blip on the screen.”

Other charges brought against Worthy, including kidnapping and impersonating a police officer, were dismissed.